SOM

About SOM

SOM - Skidmore, Owings & Merrill - is a collective of architects, designers, engineers and planners working across the globe. Founded in 1936 when two architects and an engineer formed a partnership, the firm has been interdisciplinary for more than ninety years, long before that word entered common use in the design industry. That founding decision still defines how it practises: design as a collective endeavour rather than the work of a single author.

Architecture and Engineering Together

The merger of architecture and structural engineering has been SOM's hallmark for decades. Lever House, completed in 1952, was the first modernist office building in New York City. The John Hancock Center, completed in 1970, introduced the braced tube - a structural idea that made supertall towers economically viable and reshaped skylines worldwide. Having engineers and architects in the same studio means structural logic and architectural expression are developed together rather than negotiated after the fact.

Areas of Expertise

• Tall buildings and commercial - offices, supertall towers and mixed-use developments
• Structural and civil engineering - long-span, high-rise and infrastructure engineering
• Sustainable engineering - energy, carbon and building performance analysis
• Airports and transportation - terminals, transit stations and mobility infrastructure
• Civic and government - courthouses, federal buildings and embassies
• Healthcare and science - hospitals, research and laboratory facilities
• Higher education and K-12 - academic and campus buildings
• Cultural, hospitality and residential
• Urban design and planning - district frameworks and regenerative city planning
• Interiors, facade design, landscape and ecology
• Adaptive reuse, graphics and brand, and product design

Interdisciplinary Practice

SOM describes its studios as having no boundaries: each area of expertise is interwoven with the others, and knowledge is shared deliberately across disciplines. Teams combine designers with an artistic sensibility, architects and engineers with specialised technical knowledge, and planners who understand policy and economics. The stated aim is design solutions that no single person could have imagined alone.

Sustainability and Regenerative Design

Sustainable engineering is a named area of expertise, not a marketing overlay. The firm's work extends from energy-efficient facades and low-carbon structural systems to regenerative city planning, where the question shifts from doing less harm to actively improving ecological and social conditions.

Global Reach

SOM operates studios across North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, delivering projects such as the JTI Headquarters in Geneva alongside major works in the United States and Asia. Its international portfolio spans the tallest towers in the world, national airports and civic buildings for governments.

Market Position

SOM sits at the very top tier of global design practice. Few firms can offer architecture and structural engineering at equal depth under one roof, and fewer still have shaped the technical evolution of the skyscraper as directly. For owners of technically extreme projects - supertall towers, long-span terminals, high-security civic buildings - that integration is the core value proposition.

Why AEC Teams Study SOM

For engineers, architects and developers, SOM's body of work remains one of the most important references in the built environment for structural innovation, facade engineering and the integration of design and technical performance.